Patriots & Petticoats

The work rarely stops here! I am onto my next quilt...it's a 98" 1840's reproduction quilt called Patriots & Petticoats. This is actually the whole quilt if you want to see it. It has nice light fabrics, and a good bit of open area for a longarmer to play in. I started it 3 days ago, and am about 1/3 done, if my hourly estimates are correct. I am within sight of the center, but probably another 3-4 before I am truly half-way.

I just love the border fabric. After seeing it, I thought about some swirling leaves, following the design of the print. The client had really liked an initial suggestion of swags and piano keys, so I opted to go with this. I stuck feathers in the smallest space under the first swag. I may go back and do parallel lines on either side of each piano key to jazz up the outer border a bit as well. I'll do this all at the end so there's not so much stop and go. As you may be able to detect below, there are corners of curved cross-hatching, meandering feathers, and then, more feathers. Yum!
It's hard to see the madness to my method in only a 20" segment, but I am breaking up the background fabric to partition a feathered diamond in the quilt's center. There is a lot of feathering on this one. Even the 20 all different pieced blocks got feathered wreaths. It just seemed more cohesive than all the stencil ideas I was testing.
The very center background is very appropriately, straight cross-hatched on a 1" grid. It may seem a little bland right now, but I think it will be quite cohesive when the entire quilt is visible. I have contemplated adding cc's to the hatching, but I think that will be overkill. Better to change my mind later, than to pick it out for 4 hours now!
The ribbon border is delightful. It is simple, elegant and quite consistent with 1840. Visual straight lines at 1/2" spacing and feathers. The narrow borders are not yet ditched, nor are the logs. Patience...in due time. Tomorrow I will be most likely conquering the center medallion. I'm on the fence about what to do with the ivory background on it. The quilter in me wants to McTavish or pebble it, but the 1840's ladies would never approve of such a frivolous waste of thread. I must keep thinking. Somehow a straight cross-grid just seems too mundane!